Tales from the Academy

Chapter 7

Anny was standing guard—again. As Alby had feared, C Company had been the duty company for the last three weeks. It was now Winterfair and they had not been granted leave. Even though nearly all the other cadets were gone and a great deal of the staff, too, the Academy still had to be guarded lest someone walk off with it. At least the weather had moderated a bit. There was still snow on the ground, but the sun was out, the wind mild, and if she wasn't so depressed, it might have seemed a nice day.

Morale in the company was about as low as it could get. Nearly all the Vor had managed to get out and more high-demerit non-Vor had been transferred in. Only Alby and a couple of other Vor remained. She wondered how long it would be before they left, too. Alby had sworn he would not go, but she wouldn't blame him if he did. Two months ago she would have been thrilled to see the last of the likes of Levey and Palen, but now… Be careful what you wish for.

There had not been any 'incidents' directed against her recently but she wasn't sure if that was a result of apathy, of because her company-mates hadn't quite realized that she was the source of their troubles. If it was the latter, then it was only a matter of time before this respite came to an end.

"Hey, Payne!"

She spun around and saw Hal Lindvig, the acting sergeant of the guard coming toward her with another cadet. "You're relieved. Report to the Commandant's office."

"Why? What's up?"

"No idea. Just go."

"Right." The other sentry took her spot, she gave her rifle to Lindvig and trotted toward the Commandant's Office. Now what's going on? Her post was not too far from the office so it only took a couple of minutes to get there. But that was plenty long enough for all sorts of disaster scenarios to pop up in her head. She reached the building, went up the steps and made her way to the outer office. The Commandant's aide was there. His expression was… odd.

"You have some visitors, cadet. The Commandant isn't here, but they're waiting in his office. Go on in."

Totally mystified, she opened the door, went in and…

"Drou! Commodore!"

Without consciously moving she was hugging Drou and trying not to cry. She'd never been happier to see anyone in her life. Drou was hugging her back just as tightly and the Commodore was standing close by with a large smile on his face.

"Oh! Oh, this is the best Winterfair gift ever!" she exclaimed when they finally let go of each other.

"Well, when we heard that you weren't able to get away, we decided that we would come and see you instead," said Drou.

"Thank you so much! But… but I'm on duty right now."

"Not for the next six hours," said the Commodore happily. "Rank hath its privileges, even when the rank is retired."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," said Drou. "You have a six-hour pass and we have the lightflyer, where would you like to go?"

"Oh… anywhere!"

"Anywhere but here, eh?" said the Commodore.

"Well… yeah."

"Understandable. But let's not waste a minute. We can decide where we're going once we're airborne." A short time later they were in the red lightflyer, climbing skyward.

"Actually," said Drou, "at max we are only twenty minutes from Vorkosigan House. They have it all decorated for Winterfair. We could have lunch there and spend the afternoon and still get you back in time."

"What do you say, Anny?" asked the Commodore.

An enormous wave of homesickness swept over Anny. And yet her thoughts were not turned to the modest cottage where she grew up, but to the huge house where she had lived for only six months prior to coming to the Academy. Ma Kosti, Lady Ekaterine and her children, the armsmen… "I think that would be a wonderful idea."

"Good! We're on our way!" Anny was pressed back in her seat as the sleek machine accelerated to its maximum velocity.

"This is so nice of you," said Anny. "But I feel guilty about all the others in my company who have to stay behind."

"Uh, yes," said the Commodore. "Well, to be honest with you this trip has more than one purpose. We've been hearing some… rumors about what's been going on there and Miles and I wanted to have a little talk with you."

"The Lord Auditor?" asked Anny in surprise. "Will he be there?"

"Kou!" said Drou sharply. "You're giving it away!"

"Oops."

"Well! Whatever talk you plan to have, it can wait until after lunch! For right now, no business! Anny, tell us about the Academy."

Anny suspected that there was more than a simple lunch waiting for her at Vorkosigan House. The people there never did anything by halves! But for the next fifteen minutes she just talked about the good things at the Academy. The interesting things she had done, the friends she had made, her hopes for the future. Still, it was impossible to hide everything.

"So, you're not living in the barracks?" asked Drou.

"No, there's this little house out in the woods. I guess it used to be a guest cottage or something. They have me there."

"Private quarters!" said the Commodore. "Quite a luxury!"

"Is it nice?" asked Drou.

"Uh, well, it could use some fixing up."

"How much fixing up?"

"Electricity and running water would be nice," she admitted.

Drou gave an outraged snort. "You can't be serious!"

"Sadly, I am."

"Kou! That's disgraceful! Something has to be done!"

"I thought you said no business until after lunch," replied Kou. Drou fumed the rest of the way to Vorkosigan House.

Anny's suspicions proved right when they entered the huge, old mansion. The Lord Auditor, his wife and children were there along with all of the Koudelka girls, and most of their husbands. She was a bit disappointed that the Count and Countess were still on Sergyar, but the warm welcome given by everyone else more than compensated.

"Anny! Anny!" screamed young Helen when she saw her. The girl ran over and demanded to be picked up.

"Goodness! Look how big you are!" exclaimed Anny, hoisting her high. "What have they been feeding you to make you grow so much?"

"She eats anything she can get her hands on," said Lady Ekaterine. "And around here it's not hard for her to find things."

"Speaking of eating," said the Lord Auditor, "I believe lunch is about ready. Considering how little time Cadet Payne has, we shouldn't dally."

'Lunch' was a Ma Kosti affair that would have been called a banquet in most places. The food at the Academy was really very good, for the most part, but compared to this it was like processed cardboard. Anny savored every bite.

Conversation around the table was as carefully choreographed as the meal itself, it seemed to Anny. Questions about her experience at the Academy were very generalized and most of the talk concerned local goings-on. She was interested to learn that two of the Koudelka girls, Olivia and Delia, and their husbands had started their first children using uterine replicators. She gave them her congratulations. Lord Mark, Kareen Koudelka's… intended was off-planet, but his business involving those amazing little bugs was doing very well. Martya's husband, the Escobaran scientist who invented the bugs, spoke at length about the progress being made in adapting them to eat native Barrayaran vegetation. Apparently, parts of the current meal had been created with some of their by-products, although the Lord Auditor interrupted him before he could mention which ones. Anny thought everything tasted wonderful.

Afterwards, Lady Ekaterine, Helen and Aral gave her a quick tour of the house to show off the Winterfair decorations (which were beautiful). But before long the Lord Auditor, Commodore Koudelka, and Delia's husband, Commodore Galeni, collected her and took her to one of the smaller rooms for a private conversation.

"Anny," said the Lord Auditor after they were all seated. "I'd like you to give us a frank account of what's happened to you at the Academy. The unusual incidents, I mean—and I think you know what I'm talking about. We have our own sources of information, but we'd like to hear your side of things. And please don't hold anything back for fear of appearing to be complaining or whining or getting anyone in trouble. We—and since I'm acting on the Emperor's behalf, you can consider that to be a we with a capital 'W'—need to know the full story."

The Emperor! Why does he want to know?

Despite her considerable trepidations, with quite a lot of nudging and penetrating questions, the trio got pretty much everything out of her in about a half an hour. She really didn't want to complain or whine, but the Lord Auditor clearly already knew enough of her troubles that it was impossible to hold much back. They seemed particularly interested in the incident with Sergeant Jervis. By the time she was finished with that, Commodore Koudelka was fuming.

"The bastard," he muttered.

"You'd already seen the medical report, Kou," said the Lord Auditor.

"Yes, but that's only half the story. Jervis ought to be arrested!"

"Ultimately, he might be, but we don't want to tip our hand too soon."

Anny looked from one man to the next. "Please, My Lord, what's going on?"

The Lord Auditor looked at her in silence for a few moments, as if considering how much he wanted to tell her. Anny had the feeling of falling into water that was way over her head. Finally, he leaned forward and fixed a penetrating eye on her. "Anny, I'm going to tell you some things you have to keep in confidence. Can I depend on you for that?"

She gulped and nodded.

He smiled slightly. "Don't look so tense. No great State Secrets, Anny, but just some things that ought not to be spread around, okay?"

"Yes, My Lord Auditor."

"Good. Now, I think you already know that the Emperor has taken some interest in your case, correct?"

"Yes, your mother, that is, the Countess, mentioned that the final decision to allow me to go to the Academy was made by the Emperor."

"Right. Well, his decision was considered overly-progressive by some of the more conservative counts and some high-ranking officers. There was quite a lot of opposition to it in some quarters, but they didn't have the votes to make an open issue of it. I think that most of the opponents were willing to just sit back and watch you fail."

Anny sat up straighter and frowned.

"Don't look so surprised, cadet," said Commodore Galeni. "Considering their prejudices, they would naturally expect you to fail and fail quickly."

"But you didn't fail," said the Lord Auditor. "You were being watched more closely and by far more people than I'm sure you suspect, Anny. You took everything that was thrown at you and kept on going. You impressed a lot of people and surprised a lot more. Those first few incidents, the tunic, the paint, were probably just spontaneous acts that your comrades dreamed up. But the later incidents, Sergeant Jervis and this situation with the duty company, we… suspect that there is more behind it than simple resentment on the part of stiff-necked reactionaries in the Academy staff and the corps of cadets."

"We… Uh, that is, I thought that there might be something more to it than that, My Lord," said Anny.

"We," said the Lord Auditor with a smile. "Yes, tell us a little about your friends, Anny."

With considerably more reluctance, she told them about Jer and Alby and Patric. She didn't want to get them involved in whatever was going on. But they're already involved, aren't they? "I… I don't think I could make it without them," she finished.

"I'm glad you have such friends, Anny," said Commodore Koudelka.

"Jer Naddel and Patric Mederov are no more than they seem to be," said Commodore Galeni. Anny glanced at the ImpSec 'Eyes of Horus' pins on his collar; he'd have ways of finding out, she supposed. "But this Vorsworth boy is a bit of a mystery. We know surprisingly little about him considering who his parents are. Anny, are you certain he really is your friend?"

Anny twitched in surprise. "I certainly think so, sir. Nothing he's said or done lead me to think otherwise. And… he was the one who tipped me off about the business with the demerits and the duty company."

"Ah. Did he happen to say how he discovered that?"

"I… I'd rather not say, sir."

"Hmmm..." Galeni's stare seemed to go right through her and she feared she wasn't concealing anything about Alby's unauthorized computer foray, but Galeni didn't pursue it any further.

"So, Anny," said the Lord Auditor, "what are your plans now?"

"My Lord? I'm going back to the Academy and… try to ride this out."

"Good. As we discussed: there's more to this than there seems. You may not have thought about this too much, but you realize that if you do succeed, you'll be opening the door to every other woman in the Empire who wants to follow you?"

Anny thought back to her conversation with Drou. "Yes, My Lord Auditor."

"The news media has picked up on this, too. It's generated quite a lot of interest. A dozen more petitions for admittance have already reached local counts or the Emperor, himself. For now he's holding them in abeyance, but if you can hang on, he plans to eventually approve them."

"The newsies on Komarr have also gotten hold of the story," said Commodore Galeni. "We can expect more petitions from there—and the Empress will be backing them."

Anny shuddered. This was all too much! I was just doing this for Peter and my Da… and me. How can I carry the hopes of all these other people, too?

"You're expecting an awful lot from Anny, Miles," said Commodore Koudelka, as if reading her mind. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"Well, that's the rub, isn't it?" replied the Lord Auditor. "Sure, the Emperor could get directly involved, issue some 'cease and desist' orders, maybe send a certain Imperial Auditor on an inspection, and make sure Anny gets a fair shake for the rest of her time there. But the opposition would just cry foul and claim that we coddled her along and that her success doesn't actually mean anything. It wouldn't matter that we were just evening things out, they would claim special treatment and we'd be hard pressed to prove otherwise." He paused and looked right at her. "I know this is tough on you, Anny, but we really can't give you much help."

"I understand, My Lord Auditor," said Anny. But privately, she thought she could use a little coddling right now. Just a little? Please?

"But, Miles," said the Commodore, "this business with the permanent duty company could sink her. I mean the other cadets in her company are going to see what the score is very soon. Every one of them has just as much at stake as she does. They all want to make it through the Academy and if they see her as a real threat to that goal, who knows what they might do? There's no way we can predict their actions—or protect Anny from them. This crap with the demerits is all administrative. We could pull some strings to get it put back the way it used to be and hardly anyone would ever know."

Yes! Please! Just a tiny little string!

The Lord Auditor pursed his lips. "I see what you're saying, Kou, but there's no way we could keep it secret. But you know, there might be another way to handle this." He looked at Anny again. "It won't be easy, but if you could pull it off, not only would it solve the immediate problem, but it would really impress a lot of fence-sitters."

"What are you proposing, Miles?" asked Commodore Koudelka.

The Lord Auditor smiled. "Come, come gentlemen, it hasn't been that long since you were at the Academy! All Anny and her company have to do is win the Vorbarra Pentathalon!"

[Scene Break]

After Drou and the Commodore deposited her back at the Academy, the whole incident seemed like a dream. She reported in and got some very strange looks from some of the others in the company. Two hours later she was dismissed for the rest of the day. Even though being denied leave at Winterfair was a drag, at least they had no regular duties at all. At normal times they had to fit in their extra duty around their regular daily activities. Now, once they had taken their turn with the duty company, they were free. Anny spent the evening doing her laundry and polishing brass and leather and thinking about what she'd been told by the Lord Auditor. His suggestion was audacious. But how could she sell it to the others? She was tempted to seek out Jer and Alby and Patric, but two of them had duty and anyway, she was tired. She actually had the opportunity to get a decent night's sleep. She was getting ready for bed when there was knock on her door.

Cautiously she opened it, telling herself any vandals or attackers probably wouldn't knock. She was relieved and puzzled to see Jer standing outside.

"Jer! Why are you here?" she asked, ushering him inside and shutting the door. "How did you get past the guards?"

"I totally outwitted them by the unconventional tactic of cutting through the woods rather than taking the path. Reminds me of a Komarran joke about ImpSec guards and an escaping fugitive. And I only got lost once." He stamped snow off his feet and looked at her. "But as for why I'm here, can you come back to the barracks with me, Anny?"

"The barracks! Why?"

Jer looked nervous. "They're having a meeting tonight."

"What sort of meeting?"

"To discuss what to do about… you."

"Me?"

"The hot heads have figured out what's going on. They've decided that you are the source of our woes. They plan to discuss what to do about it. I think… I think you ought to be there."

A chill went through Anny that had nothing to do with the weather. She'd hoped that there would be more time, but apparently, time had run out. "When is this meeting?"

"It's probably already started. Sergeant Byrne is off somewhere and those who have to report for duty in an hour wanted to have their say before they left. Can you come with me now?"

"All right, let me get my coat." She quickly dressed and followed Jer outside. With all the leaves off the trees it wasn't as dark as it usually was, but it still took her eyes a while to adapt. Jer led her back the way he had come, following his own footprints in the snow.

"You know, since our company is supplying the guards," she said after walking a while, "we could have just taken the path."

"Anny, you haven't been invited to this meeting. They don't know you're coming."

"Oh. " Oh!

They emerged from the woods and headed for the barracks. Most of the buildings were dark, but some lights could be seen on one floor of the building where C Company was living. Jer took her in by a back door he had propped open and up the stairs to the third floor. Even before they got there, Anny could hear some angry voices from up ahead.

"I tell you we've got to do something!"

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Get her to leave!"

"How? She won't quit!"

"Well, if we don't think of a way, every one of us is going to be flunked out! You can see what they're doing to us!"

"I worked too hard to get here, my parents sacrificed everything to give me this chance. I'm not going to lose it because that bitch refuses to… to…"

"To what, Mr. Gerhardt?" asked Anny as she strode into the midst of C Company. Sixty faces looked at her in surprise. "What would you like me to do?" She looked boldly back at all of them, but ended up facing Cadet Gerhardt. She supposed it wasn't fair to single him out, but he was the one who had been speaking last. He blushed, but wasn't intimidated.

"To quit! You should quit!"

"Why? I worked just as hard to get here. My family sacrificed just as much. Why should I quit?"

"Because you're taking all of us down with you!" cried another cadet. "They're out to get you, we can all see that!"

"So you want to just throw her to the wolves to save your own skins?" demanded Jer angrily.

"You stay out of this, Komarran!" snarled a cadent named Krasner. "You shouldn't be here, either!" Several others shouted their agreement. Jer bristled and there might have been a fight right there except Anny stepped in between.

"So you want me to quit?" she asked. "All of you?" She looked from face to face. Many nodded their heads or said yes emphatically, but others seemed less certain and some of the original members of the company couldn't meet her eyes. Still, she was torn. Despite the pep talk she'd received earlier that day, despite all the hypothetical women of Barryaar and Komarr waiting to follow in her footsteps, the boys in front of her weren't hypothetical. They were real and they didn't deserve to have their own futures ruined because of the fight over Anny Payne. Maybe she should quit; take a bullet for her company…

"It hardly seems unanimous," said Jer.

"It's not!" said another voice. Anny turned and saw Patric Mederov and Alby Vorsworth framed in the doorway. They were just coming off guard duty and still wore their heavy greatcoats. "Anny shouldn't quit and we have no right to ask her," said Patric.

"No?" asked one of the cadets angrily. "You expect us to just sit here until they decide to flunk us out for demerits? That's what they're going to do, you know! The other cadets are already calling us "L Company"—L for Leper!"

"That's right," said Alby. "They think we're no good. But if you try to force Anny out then they'll be right: we aren't any good!"

"Easy for you to say, Worth!" snapped another cadet. "With your parents you don't have to worry about being kicked out!" Alby frowned and didn't have any comeback. It was true and they all knew it.

"We have to stick together," said Patric. "They're trying to turn us against each other. If they succeed then were finished. Even if Anny were to quit and they stopped trying to wreck the company, do you think that would be the end of it? Everyone would know what we did. They'd know that we turned our backs on a comrade to save ourselves. No one would ever trust us again! We might survive to graduate from the Academy, but our careers would be over before they ever began!"

That struck home. Anny could see that Patric's words had gotten through with an idea they hadn't considered before. Anny hadn't thought in those terms, either. But he was right: something like this would put a stain on them that nothing could wipe away. It would follow them like a curse forever after.

"But what can we do?" moaned Gerhardt. "We're screwed no matter which way we jump!"

"Then we jump in a new direction!" said Anny. "A direction they don't expect, and we beat them at their own game!"

"What do you mean?"

"They're trying to crush us with demerits—so we get rid of them/"

"Yeah, right! How do we do that?"

"By winning the Vorbarra Pentathalon."

A few faces lit up, but most looked puzzled. "What the hell is that?" demanded Gerhardt.

"It's a competition held by the Academy every spring," said Alby who had obviously caught Anny's drift. "The companies in each battalion compete against each other in a series of five athletic events." Alby paused and a devilish grin appeared on his face. "And the winning company has its demerits—all its demerits—erased!"

"Exactly," said Anny. And we are going to win!"